1. Field
The present invention relates to a home appliance system and an operation method thereof, and more particularly, to a home appliance system and an operation method thereof which can check a status of a home appliance and provide for convenient after-sales service by analyzing product information contained in a sound by the use of the sound output from the home appliance.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Home appliances store settings for executing operations, information generated during operation, fault information, and so forth during the execution of a predetermined operation. Especially in the case of failure, the home appliance allows a user using the home appliance to recognize a status of the home appliance by outputting a predetermined alarm. As well as simply notifying the user of completion of an operation or a failure occurrence, such a home appliance outputs detailed fault information through output means provided therein, for example, display means, a lamp, etc.
If any abnormality occurs to the home appliance, the user will have to use the after-sales service to contact a service center or the like for advice on the status of the home appliance or ask for service personnel to look at the faulty home appliance.
However, it usually happens that fault information is output for no reason or output in code values that the user does not know about, thus making it difficult for the user to cope with the failure of the home appliance. Even if the user contacts the service center, it will be difficult for the user to explain exactly what status the home appliance is in. Owing to this, if service personnel visit a home, it often takes a lot of time and cost to repair the home appliance since he or she has not given a proper explanation of the status of the home appliance beforehand. For example, if parts required for repairing the home appliance are not ready in advance, the service personnel will have to bother to come again, and that much time is required.
To overcome this problem, a home appliance and a server of a service center may be connected through a predetermined communication means, but this leads to the problem of having to construct a communication network.
In addition, with the progress of the technologies, there has been developed a technique for remotely diagnosing fault information or the like by using a telephone network.
Application No. EP0510519 discloses a technique for transmitting fault information of a home appliance to a service center through a modem connected to the home appliance by using a telephone network. In this case, there was a problem that the modem had to be connected to the home appliance. In particular, home appliances such as a laundry treatment machine are usually installed outdoors, and therefore limitations on place are needed in order to connect the laundry treatment machine and the telephone network.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,987,105 discloses a technique for converting fault information of a home appliance into a sound of an audible frequency band and transmitting this sound to a service center or the like. During the procedure of transmitting the sound to the receiver of a handset after converting the fault information of the home appliance into the sound of the audible frequency band, a signal interference may occur according to the surrounding environment. Also, during the procedure of transmitting the sound through a telephone network, a data loss may occur depending on the characteristics of the telephone network.
In the above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,987,105, the size of one symbol representing one bit, which is one unit of information, should be 30 ms, and each individual frequency is used for each bit, in order to prevent data loss and transmit exact information of the product.
To minimize the intervals at which the same frequency is repeated, frequencies corresponding to the number of data have to be used. To represent seven data, seven different frequencies have to be used. Thus, there arises the problem of using unnecessarily many frequencies.
Moreover, to solve the problem caused by the use of multiple frequencies, the size of a symbol has to be increased in order to reduce the number of frequencies used. This leads to a problem that a conventional symbol time of 30 ms increases to greater than 100 ms. In this case, the size of data to be transmitted also increases owing to the large size of the symbol, and accordingly the transmission time also increases.
Subsequently, there is a demand for an alternative that represents product information by a fewer number of frequencies, reduces overall size and transmission time by using a short symbol time, and improves accuracy in a short symbol time.